See the Exclusive Trailer and Poster for Eliza Hittman’s Sex-Soaked Beach Rats

Back in January, fresh off watching Luca Guadagnino’s masterpiece Call Me by Your Name at the Sundance Film Festival, I put a question to Film Twitter: Are there any American directors who imbue their films with as much sensuality as European masters like Guadagnino, Andrea Arnold, and Pedro Almodóvar? The very next day, I saw Eliza Hittman’s terrific Beach Rats, and I knew we had a contender; so did the festival jury, which awarded Hittman a directing prize. Lensed by Hélène Louvart, Beach Rats follows young Brooklyn bro Frankie (breakout Harris Dickinson) as he navigates the intricacies of performative masculinity: Sitting on the boardwalk with his friends, he plays along with their catcalls and girl talk, but when Frankie is alone in his family’s basement, snapping shirtless selfies in the darkness to entice other men online, he’s commodifying a sexuality that he hasn’t even figured out yet. Take a look at this exclusive trailer and poster for Beach Rats, out August 25.